“At Home: Walter Osborne’s Paintings of Family Life” Lecture by Kathryn Milligan, Ph.D.

Name: “At Home: Walter Osborne’s Paintings of Family Life” Lecture by Kathryn Milligan, Ph.D.
Start: 2025-09-03T17:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-03T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 100 St. André Way, Notre Dame, IN, United States, Indiana 46556

Schedule

Wed Sep 03 2025 at 05:30 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

100 St. André Way, Notre Dame, IN, United States, Indiana 46556 | Notre Dame, IN

Starting with the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art’s own Walter Osborne painting At the Breakfast Table, Milligan considers the family life of the artist following the death of his sister, Violet, in childbirth in 1893. She brings to light the material and social conditions of daily life in Rathmines, the prosperous Dublin suburb where they lived, and situates the work within the context of painted depictions of domesticity in the late nineteenth century.
Kathryn Milligan is assistant librarian at the Edward Murphy Library, National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She studied art history at University College, Dublin, and earned her Ph.D. from Trinity College. As an independent art historian specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth- century Irish art, she focuses on the depiction of Dublin and the city as a site of exhibition, display, and artistic exchange. She is the author of the acclaimed book, Painting Dublin, 1886–1949: Visualising a Changing City (Manchester University Press, 2020) and the essay “At the Breakfast Table: Walter Osborne, Family Life and the Interior Scene” in the present exhibition catalogue.
Before the lecture in the Atrium, we encourage you to explore Walter Osborne’s work on view in the Temporary Exhibition Galleries on Level 2. The exhibition will remain open until the lecture begins.
Walter Frederick Osborne (Irish, 1859–1903), At the Breakfast Table, 1894, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches (canvas). Donald and Marilyn Keough Foundation, 2019.029